Paper stick for supporting confections and method of making the same



Nov. 24, 1959 H. MAYSON 2,914,409

- PAPER swxcx FOR SUPPORTING CONFECTIONS AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME Filed March 51. 1958 2 Shee ts-Sheet 1 INVENTOR HEEJEET NA Y5 0N Nov. 24, 1959 H. MAYSON PAPER STICK FOR SUPPORTING CONFECTIONS Filed March a1, 1958 AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR #6796519? MA YS IY ATTORNEY United States Patent PAPER STICK FOR SUPPORTING CONFECTIONS AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME Herbert Mayson, Stretford, near Manchester, England, as-

signor to Textilose Limited, Manchester, England, a British company Application March 31, 1958, Serial No. 725,409

Claims priority, application Great Britain April 1, 1957 4 Claims. 01. 99-133 This invention concerns paper sticks for supporting lollipops and like confections.

It is known to make paper string or cord by twisting a plurality of strips of paper individually and then doubling several of them to form the string or cord. It will be appreciated, however, that when string or cord is made in such a manner it has to be flexible to substantially the same extent as string or cord from fibre such as hemp in order to be suitable for the same uses.

It is also known to make sticks for supporting lollipops or like confections from thin strips of wood which may be either fiat or circular in cross-section. A wooden lollipop stick has the known disadvantage of risk of injury in that if a child should fall, with the lollipop in the mouth, there is a very grave danger of it receiving a painful injury either by the lollipop itself or by the stick being forced through the lollipop into the roof of the mouth or the back of the throat. There is also a danger that the stick may be broken and splinters from the stick could be left in the roof of the mouth or stuck in the throat. It will be appreciated that such an accident can, of course, be very serious, if not, in extreme cases, fatal.

It has been thought that laminated or rolled paper any rigid sticks are very dangerous and attempts have been made to overcome the disadvantage by substituting sticks of different materials, such as cardboard. Whilst a cardboard stick in an unbroken condition is satisfactory as a means for holding a lollipop, should the stick become bent the cardboard will fracture and in such a manner that it is thereafter relatively almost severed, if not actually severed, and therefore of no use for the purpose for which it was designed.

It has been thought the laminated or rolled paper can be used to manufacture such sticks and several attempts to make sticks out of paper have been made. It has been found, however, that the production difliculties encountered whilst making such sticks have far offset any advantage that can be Obtained from making sticks in this manner due to the high cost of production and the specialised methods employed. Moreover, in obtaining the required resistance to fracture, the stick becomes stiffer and therefore relatively more dangerous from the point of view of risk of injury.

It will be evident that a twisted paper string, if made stiff enough for a stick, will suffer (though perhaps to a lesser extent) from the same disadvantage as does a cardboard stick, this disadvantage being, of course, the susceptibility to fracture of the stick to the point of severance, at least when the latter is bent as by a fall or the normal possible rough handling by a child.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a paper stick for supporting a lollipop or like confection, which stick will be rigid enough to hold the lollipop, flexible enough substantially to reduce the risk of injury and at the same time more durable by being less susceptible when bent to fracture to the point of severance.

2,914,409 Patented Nov. 24, 1959 ice According to the present invention a paper stick for supporting a lollipop or like confection comprises at least one strip of paper which is initially folded or crushed and subsequently compressed to form, throughout its mass, substantially longitudinally disposed residual creases, whereby a degree of stiffness is provided, whilst on bending, the creases can open to relieve bending stresses and thereby provide, in effect, a greenstick fracture with greatly reduced or substantially no severance and a useful degree of residual stiffness.

Preferably, the compression is carried out in stages, for example, four, partly with the use of grooved rollers which cause a reduction in diameter of the paper to the required finished size.

The invention will be described further, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figs. 1 and 2 constitute, collectively, a diagrammatic side elevation of a machine for producing paper sticks in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 3 is an end elevation of part of the machine of Figs. 1 and 2; r

Fig. is a plan view of part of the machine shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 5 is a plan view of part of the machine shown in Fig. 2;

Fig. 6 is a cross-sectionalside elevation, on an enlarged scale, of the machine part of Fig. 5.

In the manufacture of a paper stick for supporting a up to approximately'five to six inches in width, is suit ably positioned on a carrying frame-work (not shown) in such a manner as to allow the paper easily to be unrolled therefrom. The paper strip 11 as it is unrolled, is passed through a glue bath 12 therein, it is coated lightly on both sides with an edible glue 13 of suitable tenacity and from the glue bath the paper is passed continuously through a pair of rollers 14 which remove excess glue and then through a substantially conical mould or cone 15 having internal projections 16, and at its apex, a narrow aperture 17 shaped to conform approximately to that of the desired finished stick. As the strip of paper 11 passes through the mould 15 the process somewhat resembles extrusion but, in fact, the paper strip is first rolled or shaped into tubular form and has four, reentrant creases or folds formed in its periphery and is then bunched up and compressed so that substantially longitudinally disposed residual reentrant creases are formed in the finished shape. The paper is drawn through the mould by drawing means constituted by two pairs of compression rollers 18, 18 and 19, 19. The compression rollers are grooved so that, at the nip, an aperture is formed shaped to conform to that of the desired finished stick. It has been found that two pairs of rollers with the pair 19, 19 having smaller grooves, and an interposed roller pair 20, 20 compress the paper to the required extent to form a continuous stick 21 which is sufficiently solid to hold a shape and sufficiently resilient to bend under compression.

From the roller pair 19, 19 the compressed stick 21 passes to a trimmer (see Figs. 2 and 5). This comprises a sleeve 22 having a passage 23 for the stick and which is cut away to accommodate a pair of rotary cutting discs 24 which, as can be seen from Fig. 5, extend down at either side of the stick. A compressed air chamber 25 is provided in the sleeve 22 and this has an opening into the passage 23 and is connected, by a union 26, with a source of compressed air (not shown). As the stick passes through this trimmer any protuberances or ribs left thereon or produced by the rollers 19, 19 are trimmed off. the compressed air serving to ensure that such trimmed-off paper does not pass along with the stick 21 and consequently cannot foul the apparatus.

The continuous stick then passes to a severing or cropping device (see Figs. 2 and 3) and this comprises a nozzle 27 through which the stick passes to a stationary bush 28 provided on a frame 29 of the cropping device. Abutting the stationary bush 28 is a displaceable bush 30, this being carried upon one arm 31 of a two-armed lever 32 pivotally mounted at 33 upon the frame 29. The arm 31 abuts a stop 34 on the frame 29 at one side and at the other side abuts a compression spring 35 mounted upon a fixed bracket 36, the spring 35 serving to urge the arm 31 to the position illustrated wherein in the bush 30, and contiguous therewith is an outlet hole is provided in the arm 31 in alignment with the hole in the bush 30, and contiguous therewith is an outlet tube 37.

The second arm 38 of the two-armed lever 32 lies in the path of an actuating cam constituted by a disc 39 having a projection 40 adapted to strike the arm 38 at each revolution of the disc 39. This serves to displace the arm 31 temporarily in a clockwise direction as viewed in Fig. 3 and thus cause displacement of the bush 30 relative to bush 28. Since the continuous stick 21 passes through such bushes, the relative bush movement serves to shear or crop the stick at intervals to produce lollipop stick lengths 40. The frame 29 reciprocates upon a bed 2911 as indicated by horizontal arrows in Fig. 2 and the arrangement is such that cropping occurs when the frame 29 is moving to the right, as viewed in Fig. 2, at the same .speed as the stick 21, so that there is no relative movement in the direction of travel of the stick 21 between the latter and the bushes 28, 30. The cut lengths 40 pass out of the outlet tube 37 onto a revolving table 41 and are blown towards a peripheral rim 42 surrounding the table 41 by a jet of air from a nozzle 43. As the table 41 rotates, the sticks are carried through a gap in the rim 42 onto an endless conveyor 44, the top rim of which is disposed below a plurality of infra-red heating elements 45 which serve to dry the glue, the sticks falling from the conveyor at the end remote from the table 41 into a suitable receptacle (not shown).

Due to the pressing action whilst the paper is being bunched and drawn through the mould 15, the film of glue on either side thereof becomes effective to retain the folds or creases in the strip. The tenacity of the adhesive must, however, be relatively light so that the folds or creases can open asabove explained when the stick is bent. A casein adhesive has been found to be suitable for the purpose.

The invention is not restricted to the precise details above described. For example, the shape of the mould is not restricted to a conical shape and the aperture in the apex thereof can be of substantially circular or any other suitable cross-section.

The principal advantage of a paper stick made in accordance with the above description lies in the fact that due to the absence of twisting the longitudinal creases are free to open and when it is bent the interstices formed by the creasing of the paper in the mould which still permit some compression together with the opening of the creases on the tension side of the stick reduce such stresses which would otherwise cause the paper to rupture.

When a lollipop stick made in accordance with the above details is, in fact, bent the lateral dimensions of the stick are enlarged as in a green-stick fracture or bend" due to the unfolding of the creases on one side and compression on the other so that the stick does not fracture to the point of severance but retains a useful degree of stiffness for the handling of the lollipops. It will be evident that a portion of the strength is removed by such green-stick bend but it has been found that there is sufficient useful strength still left in the stick, even when it has been straightened out, to hold the lollipop.

In a further modification the stick, after compression, can be wrapped with a single convolution of paper either before it is cut to the desired length, or whilst it is in the inert condition.

, I claim:

1. A paper stick comprising a length of paper loosely rolled about its longitudinal axis and provided about its periphery with a plurality of longitudinal reentrant creases and radially compressed into a substantially compacted longitudinal body free of angular twist.

2. A paper stick as defined in claim 1 having upon both surfaces a coating of stitfening material'adapted to permit the creases to open under bending stress.

3. The method of making a paper stick comprising progressing a continuous strip of paper and rolling it into tubular form about its axis of progression during the progression and simultaneously forming a plurality of longitudinal reentrant creases in the tubular body and then subjecting the tubular creased body to a crushing action and reducing it to a substantially corn acted longitudinal body, and then cutting the continuous strip into individual lengths. 4. The method of making a paper stick as defined in claim 3 together with the preliminary step of applying a stiffening material to both surfaces of the paper strip before rolling it into tubular form.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 596,714 Purdin Jan. 4, 1898 632,781 Mar Sept. 12, 1899 2,218,525 Decker Oct. 22, 1940 2,322,731 Repass June 22, 1943 

1. A PAPER STICK COMPRISING A LENGTH OF PAPER LOOSELY ROLLED ABOUT ITS LONGITUDINAL AXIS AND PROVIDED ABOUT ITS PERIPHERY WITH A PLURALITY OF LONGITUDINAL REENTRANT CREASES AND RADIALLY COMPRESSED INTO A SUBSTANTIALLY COMPACTED LONGITUDINAL BODY FREE OF ANGULAR TWIST. 